Imperceptibly she felt him start to relax, his breathing slowing, easing. When she stopped and looked at him, without opening his eyes he muttered hazily, ‘That feels good, don’t stop.’
Slowly at first, and then with gathering confidence as she felt the tension slide out of his muscles, Jessica continued with her ministrations. It was hard work, and after ten minutes she had to stop and take a deep breath. She was perspiring almost as much as Lyle, her thin top sticking uncomfortably to her skin, her scalp prickling with heat.
He made a sound deep in his throat, the moment her hands left his skin, that her senses recognised as a form of protest, and automatically she bent towards him again, this time working on his shoulders and the mass of compacted muscles just below them, her fingers cautious at first and then firmer as she felt the slight slackening in tension that registered his body’s acceptance of her touch.
It was hot, hard work; much harder work than massaging her mother, whose muscles had not possessed the unyielding hardness of Lyle’s. The overpoweringly muggy heat of the afternoon didn’t help and the perspiration that had prickled her scalp now ran damply over her skin to gather in a single bead that dropped down onto to Lyle’s shoulder as she bent over him.
Not wanting to break the soothing rhythm of her fingers to wipe it away, in an uncalculated, automatic movement Jessica bent her head delicately absorbing the moisture with her tongue.
Her reaction was governed only by an instinctive need not to break the relaxed tenor of his breathing, nor to disturb what she knew would be oversensitive nerve endings, but the moment her tongue touched the hot flesh of his shoulder she knew how misinterpreted her actions could be. She had forgotten for a moment that he was an adult male, and one moreover who had been coldly clinical about his lack of desire for her, his vulnerability and pain arousing inside her much the same sort of compassion and concern she felt for Stuart and James, but these weren’t things she could easily explain to him, she realised sickly as she felt his body tense beneath her fingers, his head lifting off the pillow and turning so that his eyes were looking directly into her own, dark with…with what? Anger? Disbelief? Distaste?
She was just about to apologise and try to explain when he said in a voice that was curiously light and totally devoid of all emotion, ‘I think you’d better go.’
His eyes were already closing, blotting out the sight of her, Jessica thought numbly, horribly aware of the tide of scarlet heat surging up through her body. Did he think that she had been trying to make him aware of her? To arouse him? As her fingers left his skin she shuddered in a mixture of despair and anger. Surely he knew her well enough by now to know that she simply wasn’t that sort of woman? That to invade his privacy when he was ill and defenceless, especially for so stupid and senseless a reason, simply was not in her?
But what other interpretation could he put on her actions? Now what she had done, far from being an automatic instinctive reaction, seemed to be the most crassly foolish thing she had ever done in her life. As she straightened up and moved away from his body, fully aware, despite the fact that his eyes were closed, that he was far from being asleep it came to her on a wave of anguish that by her stupidity she had destroyed the rapport that had been building up between them over the last few weeks.
She was outside his room, closing the door quietly behind her before it occurred to her to ask herself why she should feel such acute pain at the thought of losing what at best was no more than a cool acceptance of her.
It was a question she did not wish to answer, instead spending what was left of the evening constructing various explanations of the truth which she could offer him once he was fully recovered, but knowing that she would be far better advised simply to let the matter drop. It was far more sensible; far, far safer simply to pretend indifference to his opinion and reaction, and to wait instead for him to bring the matter up if he chose.
* * *
‘JESSICA?’
She recognised Justine’s voice immediately she answered the phone.
‘How’s everything going?’ her sister-in-law enquired when they had exchanged ‘hellos’.
‘Better than I’d hoped, at least as far as the boys are concerned.’
‘But that brother of mine’s giving you problems, is that it?’ Justine sympathised. ‘He always was a stubborn so-and-so, and could never admit to being in the wrong. I remember when he married Heather. I told him then it would never work out. She was so obviously not the sort of girl to be put on a pedestal. She
wanted a career, not the life of a housewife with babies, but Lyle would never admit that I was right—at least not until after the divorce. He tried everything to make that marriage work, but Heather just wasn’t interested. I suspect that’s what makes him a bit ‘‘anti’’ where our sex is concerned, but I had hoped by now that he would have come to realise the benefits of being married.’
‘Oh, I think he does accept that there are benefits,’ Jessica responded guardedly. ‘In fact I suspect it’s more the loaded revolver that was held to his head that he resents.’ That and the fact that it was her he had had to marry, Jessica added mentally, but that was something she was not prepared to admit to Lyle’s sister, no matter how well they got on.
‘Oh dear, still sulking, is he? I’d hoped he’d be over that by now. Oliver, my husband, is due home tomorrow, it’s his birthday on Saturday and I’m trying to arrange a party for him. I was hoping that all of you could come over, and your sister and her husband too, if they can. With the weather being so good, I’ve been thinking in terms of a barbecue in the garden, kicking off about lunchtime and going on for as long as we feel like it.’
‘Well, I’d certainly like to come,’ Jessica told her, ‘and so I’m sure will the boys. I’m not so sure about Andrea and David. David normally plays golf at the weekend, and of course Lyle could well be on call, but I’ll check with him.’
A little to her surprise, Andrea when the invitation was passed on to her rang back within half an hour to announce that both she and David would be there.
‘After all we haven’t met any of Lyle’s family yet,’ she pointed out to Jessica, making the latter smile a little to herself.
‘Well, since we’ve been married for two months now, it’s a little late to start checking into his background,’ she teased her sister.
Lyle too confirmed that he would be free that afternoon. The slight coolness that had sprung up between them since he had his migraine attack made Jessica feel nervously hesitant about approaching him; the way his mouth tightened slightly in derision whenever she had to ask him anything betrayed his own awareness of her edginess. He had never once referred to what had happened that evening but it lay between them, a sword, sharp and dangerous to whoever should try to pick it up, and yet Jessica would have liked to talk about it, if only to clear the air.
She became suffused with heat and guilt every time she considered the interpretation he must have put on her actions and was now doubly careful about keeping her distance from him. Only this morning their fingers had touched accidentally as she was handing him his coffee and she had retreated from the contact as though burned, hating the derisory smile that curled his mouth as he watched her.
It said a great deal for the progress she had made with Stuart and James that both of them had quite cheerfully agreed to attend the barbecue lunch, Stuart albeit less readily than James. It cheered her to see how much both of them had grown in self-confidence and security, especially Stuart, who had been so prickly and withdrawn the first time she had seen him.
‘Will you always be with us?’ he had asked her only that morning and she had replied as honestly as she could.
‘I hope so, Stuart. I want to be.’
How could she explain to him that she doubted that his father wanted her as a permanent feature in his life? It had depressed her to see the small shadow of pain and wariness momentarily darkening his eyes.